


one cat at least in the bag

by dirtybinary



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Crack, M/M, everybody loves viktor, tongue in cheek you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9450077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtybinary/pseuds/dirtybinary
Summary: PLOT TWIST: The cat is named Viktor.So are all the other pets.





	

This is all the cat’s fault. 

Possibly it is also Past Yuri’s fault for having poor taste in pet names. It’s probably the Katsudon’s fault for being a nosy busybody, and Viktor’s for—everything else, really. Breathing. _Existing._ Yuri is scrolling through the pictures on his camera roll in an effort not to think about how he’s due to skate at the _Grand Prix Final_ for the first time in his life in about twenty minutes, when Yuuri (Viktor-less, for once) comes up and looks over his shoulder. “Aww, is that your cat?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “Of course it’s my cat. What kind of creepy loser stares at pictures of other people’s pets?” 

Katsuki Yuuri, probably. And just like that, Yuri’s mouth keeps talking. The Katsudon is such a loser that he won’t notice if Yuri acts like one, too; and anyway, if he doesn’t distract himself _somehow_ , his heart will crash right out of his ribcage before he even makes it onto the ice. “He’s a ragdoll cat. I’ve had him since I was twelve. My grandpa’s neighbour’s cat had kittens and he said I could have one of them, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, I miss him to bits but he’d probably claw my eyes out if I try to take him on a plane—my cat, not my grandpa—so I have to make do with video calls, but it’s worth it, isn’t he so cute?”

Heads turn. Yuri realises that he has been talking very loudly and very breathlessly, and that this is more words than he’s said in the last three hours. Fortunately, Otabek is out by the rink and isn’t here to witness him making a fool of himself. “The cutest,” Yuuri agrees, smiling down in that soft, stupid old-man way of his. “What’s his name?”

“Vi—”

Yuri bites it back just in time. What the hell, that was too close. “Vinegar,” he says, picking an English word at random. 

Yuuri’s mouth is straining up at the edges, like he’s heard, like he _knows_ , and Yuri takes that back: he wishes Otabek were here to help him murder every single person in the room, slowly, with the blades of their own skates. “Vinegar? Really?” 

“It sounds cooler in Russian,” says Yuri defiantly. It doesn’t, at all.

“Sure,” says Yuuri. He’s still smiling that stupid knowing smile. “ _Davai_ , Yurio. I’m gonna go ask Chris what he named _his_ cat.” And he actually squeezes Yuri’s shoulder, gentle but bracing, and wanders off across the lounge.

Yuri stabs a finger at his phone, staring down at the photo of his cat sharpening his claws on one of Georgi’s boots. “I’d rename you if you’d answer to anything else,” he says, sulkily.

 

 

 

He changes his mind. It is _entirely_ the Katsudon’s fault. 

Yuuri goes back to Hasetsu the month after the GPF to pack and tie up loose ends before the big move to Saint-Petersburg, and Viktor goes with him, since they apparently can’t be apart for longer than fifteen minutes without tears and dramatic declarations. Yuri tags along. He doesn’t know why—nobody invited him, but nobody said he couldn’t come, either, and both Viktor and Yuuri seem pleased when he shows up at the airport without notice.

So does Yuuko, when she spots him stalking along behind the lovebirds with his giant suitcase in tow. The hug is surprising. It’s nice to be missed. The first evening, the four of them sit together over warm sake (Yuri is only allowed one cup and the Katsudon is watching him like a hawk, it is _so stupid_ ) in the Nishigoris’ living room, watching Makkachin snoofing around the triplets’ feet while they scream at something on their laptop. Yuuko sighs, fond, and nudges Yuuri’s foot with her own. “Makes you miss Vicchan, doesn’t it?”

“I’m right here,” says Viktor absently. The name has come to be so familiar that Yuri doesn’t even register the strangeness of the statement until Yuuri starts flapping his hands and making sounds like an engine backfiring. Viktor’s brow creases over in concern. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” 

 _Sweetheart._ They are so gross. “Oh,” says Yuuko, gaze sliding over to Viktor and Yuri. “You never told him?”

Yuri looks back and forth between Yuuko and Yuuri, and begins to understand. That knowing look at the GPF makes perfect sense now. It takes one to know one, after all, and Yuri smiles his sweetest _agape_ smile, ready to have his revenge. “Ooh,” he says, over the horrible honking noises Yuuri is emitting. “Who’s Vicchan, Yuuko?”

As it transpires, Yuri is not the only one to make poor pet-naming decisions at age twelve. He can’t even make fun of the Katsudon for it, because Vicchan is _dead,_ and that’s not a fate he would wish on his worst enemy. Viktor’s mouth goes wobbly when Yuuri caves and shows him pictures, and they both look like they’re about to cry. Into each other’s hair, no less.

So, so gross. 

Yuri stomps out of the room and drafts out sixteen different messages to Otabek (who hasn’t gotten in touch since the GPF, why hasn’t he texted, why hasn’t he even updated his Twitter, does he live in the Stone Age, what is wrong with him). Then he thinks better of it, deletes all of them, and calls Mila instead so she can put his cat on Skype. “If you ever dare to die,” he threatens, “I’m going to turn you into a scarf.”

Vitya _mrrp_ s and paws at the screen, smacking Mila in the face with his feather-duster tail. Yuri feels a tiny bit better.

 

 

 

It is also all Phichit’s fault, and that’s just outrageous. Betrayal from the most unexpected quarter, really.

Yuri’s old ankle injuries are misbehaving and he’s supposed to take it easy, so he’s lying on his stomach at the rinkside, pretending very hard. Specifically, he’s pretending to not be (1) scrolling through Otabek’s near-empty Facebook profile, (2) watching out of the corner of his eye as Viktor practises his quad flip, or (3) eavesdropping while Yuuri chats with Phichit on Skype. Phichit is going on about the latest gossip from the Detroit rink while his hamsters skitter across his shoulders, and Yuri can’t help but steal glances now and then. He’s only ever seen hamsters in cages and silly plastic tubes. It’s never occurred to him that you could pet and cuddle them like cats. It’s distracting, in a pleasing way.

And then, of course, Phichit goes and ruins everything by squawking and grabbing his finger. “Ow! No, Vic! Bad!”

In an instant, Viktor is skidding towards them across the ice. “What?” he asks, wide-eyed. “What’d I do?”

Yuuri glances back and forth between him and Phichit. He looks torn between bursting out laughing and dissolving in horror, and it’s doing weird things to his eyebrows. “Nothing. He didn’t mean you.” 

Oh, no. Not this bullshit again. Yuri bolts upright like a whipcrack, his phone clattering away. “Are you joking,” he says, flat. “Not you, too.”

Phichit is giggling so hard the laptop speakers make popping sounds. Viktor still looks distressed, like someone’s just swatted him with a rolled-up newspaper. “Sorry, Viktor,” says Phichit, sucking his knuckle and clutching a squirming golden hamster in his free hand. “I meant little Vic here. She’s a bit cranky today.”

Just like that, Viktor’s expression changes direction and hurtles past ‘surprised’ and ‘pleased’ and even ‘enchanted’, right into the territory of ‘Makkachin with a new chew toy’. “Wow!” he says. He actually says, "Wow!" Yuri has never heard anyone say that unironically, ever, except for his grandpa, who is seventy-three years old. “Really? You named your hamster after me? Like Vicchan?”

“Yeah,” says Phichit. Yuuri buries his face in his hands. “It’s a meme, didn’t you know? Half the Detroit skaters named their pets after you. Yuuri started it.”

“What the _hell_ ,” says Yuri, at the same time as Yuuri wails, “Phichit!” and Viktor sticks his face up close to the hamster on the screen and makes a noise that can best be phonetically reproduced as, “Bawwwwww!” 

“The brown one’s Katsuki,” says Phichit, which—if possible—only makes things worse, “and the grey one’s Ciao Ciao.” He says this with an apologetic look at Yuri, as if Yuri might have expected the last hamster to be named after him. That’s ridiculous, seeing as it’s old and fat and kind of lumpy-looking, and Yuri was still piddling around in Juniors when Phichit and the Katsudon were doing stupid college kid things like naming rodents after skaters they admired, and no, he is not even remotely upset about this, why would he be?

“You,” he announces, jabbing his finger at the screen, “are an idiot with no originality.” Then he storms off onto the ice, because even skating on his sore ankles beats watching Viktor make kissy faces at the hamster, and Otabek is not going to text, anyway.

 

 

 

It’s a nightmare. Now that he knows to look, there are Viktors everywhere. On Instagram, for instance. 

  * Exhibit A: Leo’s video of a cockatiel bopping its tiny plumed head to the beat of something loud and dancey, captioned, _Rockin out with Baby V!_
  * Exhibit B: _Aww, Vikki doesn’t like the vet_ , under Guang Hong’s photo of an extremely fluffy and disgruntled rabbit in a carrier. (In spite of himself, Yuri hits Like on that one.)
  * Exhibit C: _Victory’s First Word!!!_ under JJ’s video of—Yuri’s afraid to load it at first, in case it’s a _baby_ , but it’s just a big red parrot screeching, “Izzy!” over and over again. Which is… actually not horrible, by JJ’s standards.



He experiences a brief moment of hope when he reaches the picture of Chris lounging on a sofa with his cat and a man vaguely familiar from the GPF kiss and cry. _Lazy date with Laurie <3_, the caption reads. Upon closer examination, Yuri decides that Laurie is most likely the man and not the cat, and breathes out a disappointed sigh.

Sycophants and sellouts, the lot of them.

 

 

 

When Otabek does text, the invitation stuns Yuri into silence for a full hour.

He’s ashamed to say that the first person he tells is the Katsudon—not to ask for permission or advice or anything stupid like that, of course, he’s not a _child_ , but just to talk. His grandpa always said that some things were so big, so incomprehensible, your heart would crumble around them if you didn’t give part of them to someone else to hold. Yuuri hums and _hmm_ s, purses up his lips like he’s making a heroic effort not to smile, and spends a good fifteen minutes dispensing unsolicited advice on how to find cheap air tickets online.

Yuri collects himself, and goes to figure out how to squeeze his four new tiger-striped hoodies into his suitcase.

The apartment in Almaty is nice. It’s small and cluttered, but in a cosy, lived-in way that doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as some of the dorms Yuri has inhabited. Otabek lives with his mother, his father, his grandmother and his little sister, all of whom receive Yuri at the door with such effusive warmth that he doesn’t quite know what to do with his face. He settles for staring around and nodding, and muttering mostly incoherent thanks.

“You’ll have to sleep in here with me,” Otabek says, waving to the spare mattress wedged into the corner of his room between the wardrobe and the bed. He is uncharacteristically twitchy today. Jumpy. Even—Yuri lets himself think it—nervous. “We don’t have a guest room. Sorry.”

“I’ll live,” Yuri says. Voice flat, scowl in place, so he gives nothing away. The truth is, he likes the low slanting roof that would have posed him no problem a year ago, but now forces him to mind his head and the expansiveness of his gestures. He likes the view of the city from the window, the blue-grey shapes of distant mountains, how he can hear the purr of traffic from the road below. He even likes the grubby old teddy bear on the bed, fur matted, left eye slightly out of place, as if it’s fallen off and been stitched back by an inexpert hand.

“That’s not the bear you bring to competitions,” he observes, for lack of anything else to say.

“It’s not very photogenic,” says Otabek. He doesn’t seem embarrassed. “I’ve had it since I was a kid.”

“Nice,” says Yuri, and he means it. “What’s it called?”

In hindsight, taking recent developments into consideration, this is skating on thin ice. Otabek does start to look shifty, and Yuri gapes at him in horror. “Oh, _no._ ”

“No!” says Otabek. His face is as carefully blank as ever, but his cheeks are bright pink. The part of Yuri’s brain that enjoys the pairing of deep black fabrics with sequins and leopard spots marks the interesting contrast this creates. “No, it’s not—”

“It’s not called Viktor?” asks Yuri suspiciously. 

“Of course not,” says Otabek. “It’s called Yura.”

His face is redder than ever. He offers a tiny, sheepish smile, and Yuri finds his own face cracking into an answering grin. There’s hope for one of them, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> [dirtybinary on tumblr](http://dirtybinary.tumblr.com)


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